Jackie Kennedy's super-strict diet revealed

Jackie Kennedy was always famed for her slim frame, and now the former First Lady's assistant has revealed the secrets of the strict diet that kept her trim.

Kathy McKeon, who worked for Jackie when she moved to New York after the assassination of JFK, revealed all about her 13 years working at the Kennedy apartment in a new book, Jackie's Girl.

Image: Simon & Schuster

McKeon's details about the socialite's strict eating habits are gaining the attention of the press after she revealed that Jackie once offered to help her lose weight, and had her follow the exact same diet as she stuck to.

"The two of them mapped out a regimen: a boiled egg and tea in the morning, cottage cheese with fresh fruit for lunch, and a poached chicken breast or fish with a salad or steamed vegetables for dinner. Plain yogurt when I wanted a snack," McKeon recalled in an excerpt published in People.

And while the diet was nowhere near enough for an adult woman, McKeon recalls bumping into Kennedy raiding the kitchen during the night, perhaps topping up on calories: "'Sometimes we’d crash into each other at night in the kitchen pantry. She didn’t put on the light because she didn’t want anyone to know she was in there!

"She was eating ice cream out of the container with a big spoon,' McKeon said. 'Not a teaspoon but a big spoon! She was a lot of fun."

McKeon's book isn't the first time that Jackie's diet has come into question. The fashion icon reportedly once told her daughter off for wanted to order dessert, as explained by C. David Heymann in his book 'American Legacy: The Story of John & Caroline Kennedy'. She reportedly told her daughter: "You're much too fat. Nobody will ever want to marry you."

She allegedly never ate dessert herself, and was extremely strict about maintaining her 120lb weight (around 54kg).